Friday, February 04, 2011

poem poemy poem

THE THING ABOUT HOME

The thing about home is
that it has never
existed. The four walls you
hung your posters or post
cards or letters or whatever
on were only ever walls. In-
stead, it is a place cobbled from
the minor and the mundane:
the scuffmark beneath the window
from your shoe as you exited, the
one you scrubbed until it was light
but not gone, and the pockmarks
from pins and nails, and there
was the corner you faced every
night as you fell asleep, all
built on the floor from a different
house, with a door from a house
you can't remember--

only the light from beneath
as you lay in the dark. Home,
then, is the feeling. It's the gas
expanding to fill the space.